ROYAL GARDENS, KEW. 
BULLETIN 
OF 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION, 
Nos. 122-123.] FEBRUARY and MARCH. [1897. 
DXLIII.—A LILY BULB DISEASE. 
(Rhizopus necans, Mass.) 
"With Plate. 
During the past year a destructive wave of fungoid disease almost 
completely ruined the crop of lily bulbs raised in Japan for exportation 
to Europe. The first indication of this disease received at Kew, was 
through Messrs. Tozer, Bros. and Co., of Gracechurch Street, who sent 
a large number of diseased bulbs for examination. These bulbs formed 
part of a consignment received from Japan in November last, consisting 
of 848 cases, containing 73,050 bulbs of Lilium speciosum, Thurb., 
“album” and “rubrum.” Out of this sate ans 250 bulbs arrived 
in a saleable aidan, the whole of the rem r being more or less 
rotten and worthless. At a later date the sa p received a second 
consignment of 37, 590 very large bulbs of Lilium auratum, and out of 
this quantity only 4,000 were saleable. Similarly diseased bulbs, 
received from Japan, were afterwards sent to Kew for examination 
from other sources. Finally, a quantity of bulbs obtained through an 
agent from Japan, for planting at Kew, contained a large percentage 
suffering from the same type of disease. 
The bulbs received for investigation showed every stage of disease ;. 
in the earliest condition, the base of the bulb is alone discoloured and 
somewhat soft ; this discolouration and softening of the tissues graduall 
spreads from the base, until finally, in the most advanced stage, every 
part of the bulb is of a brownish colour, and sufficiently soft to admit of 
being readily crushed into a pulpy mass between the fingers. 
opic examination revealed the scm of slender, continuons, 
hyaline, branched hyphae traversing the tissues in every direction ; the. 
cell-walls are never pierced, but gradually dissolved, and it is only at 
the last stage of the disease that the starch grains become irregularly 
corroded, and gradually dissolved. 
So long as the epidermis of the bulb-scales remains intact there is no 
trace of uy eellni or fructification on the surface, but when the tissue 
is reduced to a soft pulp, or when a diseased bulb is cut open, the broken 
surface is within 24 hours covered with a dense snow-white mycelium, 
ditiis suggested that it might possibly be in some T associated 
U 98709. -1375.—8/97. We 198. A 
